What We Do

Hope and a Home brings an intensive, multifaceted response to address the heart of what
is perpetuating poverty with each individual family. Using one-on-one coaching and
peer support, our parents and children build on their aspirations and strengths to achieve
permanent housing, higher education, rewarding work, and valuable connections to their
community.

What We Have Achieved

Hope and a Home is proud to report the following outcomes for 2014:

Hope and a Home's Transitional Housing program served 31 families, including 74 children and 36 adults.

Each of the eight families that graduated this year now lives in affordable, stable housing - and three qualified for homeownership through the cityâ€™s affordable housing community.

Fifteen families received financial counseling through our collaboration with Housing Counseling Services; eleven of those families have substantially paid off debt.

Seven program participants have received mental health counseling, which has positively supported their efforts to address their personal obstacles to independence.

Due to their unwavering persistence despite a difficult job market, all but three adult participants were employed either on a full time basis, or on a part time basis while attending school. Of the three who were unemployed, one was pregnant and gave birth while the other two were enrolled in certificate programs.

Nine adults living in our housing were hired for great new jobs or received significant promotions at existing jobs.

Our Higher Education for All program provided essential education assessment and advocacy services for 122 children and 62 adults.

We had 14 high school, 4 college and one law school graduations this year. In all, we had 23 youth enrolled in college and 16 adults enrolled in educational, vocational and certificate programs.

We had 11 school-age children in private school with scholarships, 20 in good-performing public schools, 44 in good-performing charter schools and 5 in day care.

Of the 27 youth who consistently participated in our Good Grades program, 3 maintained a GPA higher than 3.5, 7 had one better than 3.0, 9 better than a 2.5 and 7 better than a 2.0.

Our Higher Education for All program was supported by 25 volunteer mentors and tutoring was provided for 4 children and 2 adults.

We arranged enriched extracurricular activities for 16 school-aged children as well as programming for school vacations for 12 children, Â From time-to-time we gave families tickets to special cultural and sports events.

Home and a Home VIDEO links

Honoring Grace Dickerson Hope and a Home families and graduates talk about how our education program has made a huge impact upon their lives.

Rising and Shining
How are you Rising and Shining? Hope and a Home families share how they have learned and grown from being in our program.

Family Spotlight:
Corinne and David

When Corinne first came to us, she had a very clear vision of where she wanted her family to be. She wanted to be a homeowner and no matter how big the obstacles in front of her were, she never lost sight of her goal. She and David worked diligently,intentionally and systematically every day on their credit and savings until they made their dream of homeownership a reality. Their determination to make a better life for themselves and their children is something that inspires me to this day.